LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board has suspended the contracts of the trio of former captain Salman Butt, Muhammad Asif and Muhammad Aamir. The action came after Salman Butt and Muhammad Aamir spoke aggressively against the International Cricket Council and the PCB.
Salman and Amir accused the ICC of having an anti-Pakistan agenda after their suspensions for alleged ‘spot-fixing’ were upheld. They even criticized the PCB for leaving them alone to face allegations that did not have any base.
The ICC’s code of conduct commission, headed by Michael Beloff, upheld the suspensions of Butt, Amir and team-mate Muhammad Asif last Sunday after a two-day hearing in Dubai. Asif had already withdrawn his appeal and said that he would appeal later after his lawyer thoroughly went through the details of the case.
The trio was suspended in September after a British tabloid alleged that they were involved in ‘spot-fixing’ the Lord’s Test against England in August. “They heard us, but it was as if ‘say whatever you want to say, we have come with a decision’.
Their decision was not based on a single piece of evidence against us. We requested them for the next date of the hearing, but they didn’t give us any,” Butt said.
An official of the PCB stated that for now the players’ contracts had been suspended but did not give any details.
But it has been learnt that the directions came from the world’s governing body after the players started speaking openly on their return from Dubai. An insider said that the players were told to remain mum on the subject but they started to follow their case in a different way.
They were under contract and even then they spoke openly in public. Keeping in view the sensitivity of the issue the PCB has decided to let the players decide their own course and thus suspended their contracts.
Sources stated that the decision to resume the contracts by PCB will be made later in the light of ICC’s ruling on the fixing charges.
PCB deals another blow to the tainted trio
